Friday 17th November 2017

A team of 7 ringers carried out a catch on the pools at Harty on the night of the 17th/18th November. On a very cool dark moonless night with no wind a good catch of 123 birds was made.

Details below:

Oystercatcher - 1 adult

Grey Plover - 1 adult in arrested moult

Dunlin - 92 new birds, plus 5 retraps and a Norwegian control

Bar-tailed Godwit - 10 (a mixture of adults and first year birds)

Redshank - 3 new birds and 2 retraps

Starling - 8 all juveniles, on migration

All of the retraps were relative recent:

Redshank from 23rd November 2014 and August this year

Dunlin from February 2013, November 2013, 23rd November 2014, November 2015 andNovember 2016. These retraps demonstrate the importance of the month of November for this species when the Swale wintering population arrives.

The Grey Plover only had the outermost primary in old plumage and was very light, suggesting that this bird had only just arrived on the Swale rather than arriving in August and then moulting on the Swale.

We have caught migrating Starlings before, although this is unusual, it was good to have ringers present who know about Starlings.